FBinNY 

This happens on some cranksets, but 3 sprockets worth is a lot, and something else must be going on.

Years back freewheels and cassettes were narrower, and FD geometry was a bit different so cranks had less clearance between the arm and chainrings. You might be able to solve the problem by rotating the FD a bit. As a starting place you want the cage equidistant from the arm as it sweeps by. Some times having the back slightly farther out than the front helps, but you have to experiment, and observe.

Bringing the FD as low as possible also helps, but I doubt it'll get you three sprockets worth of improvement.

The amount of angle you seem to have still seems excessive, so I wonder if your chainline is OK. Lay a straight edge against the face of the outer chainring (edgewise so flex doesn't cause errors) on a secant and carry that back to the cassette. Allowing for the offset to the middle ring it should line up very close to the middle of the cassette.

If the chainline lines up well inboard of the middle of the cassette, that's the problem. The fix might be a longer spindle to bring the crank out, but that defeats your desire for a lower Q-factor. But the problem may be a rear triangle offset to the right, which opens a can of worms as far as remedies go.